Alexander Isak bagged a goal and a Player of the Match award against Wolves on Sunday and now Eddie Howe has spoken about what he brings to the team.
Speaking to the media ahead of Friday night’s clash with Nottingham Forest at The City Ground, Eddie Howe was quizzed about his £63million record signing, Alexander Isak.
“That’s how he’s trained,” Howe told the media. “As I said before he got the concussion he was in really, really good form in training and I was desperate to see him execute that on the pitch. I felt he did that against Wolves. I thought he was outstanding in every respect.
“Physically he was very, very good and technically very good and his goal, I still enjoy that now a week after, so hopefully that’s the start of a really good run for him.
“I think he’s a different player to anyone we have in the squad, I think he’s got really good versatility to his game, I think he can do a bit of everything so he’s a great asset to have in our front line.”
Howe now expects Isak to replicate Sunday’s performances consistently
Howe also added, “The challenge is to reproduce that sort of performance consistently. But he’s set a new benchmark in terms of his levels.”
It almost sounds like Howe has spent whatever little downtime he affords himself rewatching Isak’s stunning header on his phone.
Meanwhile, Isak has certainly done nothing to dampen the noise surrounding him as fans and pundits call for him to lead the line for Newcastle. It wasn’t just the goal he scored on Sunday that was impressive, he didn’t put a foot wrong in the hour he was on the pitch.
Can Wilson and Isak play together?
He’s made it extremely difficult for Callum Wilson to regain his place against Forest, but Howe will now be expecting a similar level of performance from the Sweden international Dion Dublin called ‘oustanding‘.
As Howe alluded to, Isak is extremely versatile and there’s still scope for Howe to experiment with playing Wilson and Isak together which could be a very dangerous partnership.